


return from the fallen

by Blahzor



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Claudeleth Week (Fire Emblem), Dreams, Heaven & Hell, M/M, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25476955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blahzor/pseuds/Blahzor
Summary: Claude feels the point digging in. Goddess, that’s bound to leave a mark.His thoughts assemble in the following order: I’m falling, that hurts, wait, thatreallyhurts, and then the realization:ah, I’m about to die.~day 5 of claudeleth week: dreams
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	return from the fallen

**Author's Note:**

> something a little bit different in terms of subject material, we will return to our regularly scheduled fluff shortly
> 
> written for day 5 of claudeleth week: dreams

Claude feels the point digging in. Goddess, that’s bound to leave a mark. 

His thoughts assemble in the following order: I’m falling, that hurts, wait, that _really_ hurts, and then the realization: _ah, I’m about to die._

He’s calm, the way a vassal ticks down a list of casualties without sparing a breath. The javelin is long. It’s bound to stay in his lungs. There’s blood on the shaft _—_ did he cough that up?

His vision cuts in half. The colors are swimming. He hears a noise, low, urgent, both far away and too close to home. The clouds are running and his wyvern is chasing after him and there’s a feeling rushing past. If he tried reaching out, would he be able to grab it?

His spine cracks and everything goes dark.

* * *

_Claude._

_Teach,_ he wants to say, but it doesn’t sit right. There’s a way it bends around the tongue to render him speechless. He knows this is because of timing, how it’s warping around the threads of his coat. There’s nothing solid to ground himself in. He’s hollow, he’s exploding, he’s lost and he’s found.

So he says instead: _Judith._

That seems appropriate, and the universe must be satisfied because he's standing on his feet.

He’s not seeing with his eyes. The tangibility of his senses is trickling out of alignment. Even the ground seems thin, like the bending of a spiderweb. But he hears her. 

“Claude.” Judith sounds displeased. That doesn’t sit right either. “ _Boy,”_ she says.

“Where are you?” he says. “I can’t find you.”

He reaches out his hands, but they’re unraveling. He cannot touch what doesn’t exist. But he _does_ exist, because if Claude doesn’t exist, then how could he hold the perception that this is real, that this is what must happen in order to form what must be, that his name is the only foreseeable proof?

He doesn’t know this either. As he extends he comes apart entirely.

* * *

Claude finds himself back in his childhood home.

The walls are holding up poorly. The weather patterns are to blame as they differentiate by landscape. One cannot label Almyra like one might label Gautier (cold and frigid), or Brigid (arid with lakes and nature). The prairies are deceptively lush, he’s coughed out the sands of the desert, he's cried in both.

He crawls out the door to peek into the hall. At the end is a woman, strikingly slender and tall, and Claude knows this to be his mother, not by her facial appearance, but how her poise reminds him of the weapon he takes up in arms: arched like a bow.

She doesn’t seem to notice him. She’s watching a man sitting in a chair, dressed from head to toe in the garb of Almyran nobility.

Claude realizes this is his father.

His hands slide along the wall. There’s a feeling in his bones that’s compelling him to stay, warning of danger, an entrenchment into something he cannot escape. But Claude’s nature does not listen to reason, authoritative or divine. So he steps further. The floors stay silent. His existence is muted to the voices of Fódlan, of Almyra.

The following events occur in rapid succession: Tiana retreats. There’s an empty vial in her hand. His father tilts forward. His chin meets his chest, which then meets his knees.

He falls to the floor.

Claude’s mouth falls open. He’s not screaming, though he wants to, he’s not sure if it’s because he simply can’t or if the air is trying to spare him.

He feels something stinging, the notion that, perhaps, this is proof of what the world was hiding. He’d once wrapped that hope in a different light. The stars shine, the moon is pretty, he’ll see them again when he’s older and birthright isn't the determining factor of kindness.

Then his vision clears and his father is rising to his feet and Tiana is speaking.

“And that, Khalid,” she says, “is why you never let your guard down.” His father nods in agreement. “Your next lesson will be in poisons.”

* * *

Claude’s horse resembles Almyran warriors: erratic and stubborn. He’s using the pressure of his legs, he’s squeezing in the right areas, yet the horse ignores each of his movements and executes the opposite.

He sucks air into his lungs. It’s a rush going in, a rush around him, a rush that’s hedging him with pure adrenaline. He understands that he should stop. The more that he pulls the risker it becomes. How was it able to continue so recklessly? How was the horse to know Claude wasn’t to die, or the horse to die along with him?

The fascination overflows. It quickly becomes fear, striking at his belly. Claude digs his nails in, but the reins are loose. He tries to grab the saddle, but he misses and he tumbles.

As his back hits the prairie the impact knocks the wind out of him, tangling stars among the clouds.

“Help,” he says. His arm pushes him up, the elbow twisted at an angle.

There’s another voice. It resembles Claude’s, though it’s lined with a gruffness that conveys disappointment. “Again,” his father says. “Khalid, you’ve got to do better than that.”

“Sorry,” he rasps out. “The horse wasn’t listening. I’ll get it next time. It was a fluke.”

But he's already reaching for the rope in his belt. Claude can’t move _—_ perhaps his nerves are frozen, perhaps his wounds aren't sewing quickly enough _—_ and it doesn’t even matter. The knot is digging into his waist.

“Two laps,” Father says. “This time, the horse will be galloping.”

* * *

When Claude leaves for Garreg Mach he brings little with him. A worn quiver—not his. A handful of arrows—not his. The charm he slides under his shirt is Nadir’s, though he pretends that it is his.

When he steps out into the courtyards he brings even less. A smile trained to fend off talons and fangs. He gives a handshake to the Adrestian princess and the prince of Faerghus, their Crests resembling the one he keeps tucked under his arm.

The name he formally presents: “Claude,” to mask the roots underneath his eyes. None of them are his.

The students retire to slumber. Claude doesn’t do this, even after he’s met the members of his house and painted a beguiling first impression. He climbs the stairs and reaches the third floor, where the battlements are located.

As he sits on the edge, he ponders. The cragged mountain peaks remind him of Almyra.

He looks up to the stars. He calls them his.

* * *

  
Claude rises out of bed. He senses something different. Hints of blood, iron, the curling wisps of burning brush. It’s strongest by his window but it floods his room from the ground up.

He thinks he hears screaming, though he isn't surprised. A continuous succession of sieges and battles has since become core to Garreg Mach’s title. The cycle feels inescapable.

The sun is setting when he pushes back the curtains. He squints. The people below are familiar. He’s not sure how, he can’t see their features, but it’s an insight that leans towards nauseating, and their voices are no less harsh.

“I’m worried about your little friend,” Judith echoes, through the window, across the stone. “You’re sure he has what it takes?”

“Do you doubt my insight?” he hears a voice responding.

Claude knows the voice. It’s none other than his own.

“He’s just a _mercenary,_ ” and real-Claude recognizes that they’re speaking of Byleth. “What's that name they call him? The Ashy Demon?”

Fake-Claude releases a laugh. It’s barely disguised as legitimate. “You can throw your nicknames, but it won’t tarnish his credibility.”

“And you’ve seen this credibility?”

“What I’ve _seen,”_ fake-Claude pushes out, “are the makings of a general who can lead us into the future.”

Judith sighs. “And what, boy, do you think is the future?”

This is when real-Claude, or maybe fake-Claude, he’s losing sense of which one, stumbles back from the window. He has to leave. The walls are breathing. There's heat curling around his throat. Perhaps if he were stronger he could endure the sensation leaving his body. He could listen in on their conversation and deduce that his name wasn’t his own, it was the other Claude’s, and that what remains of his identity is limited to his surroundings. 

He’s not strong enough, but he is clever. So he searches. The furniture is familiar. His desk is a duplicate of what he owns in his room. There’s a bow of Almyra and a cloak of Judith’s. It’s worn-down and tanned, much like his reflection in the mirror.

But this reflection is not what Claude sees.

What he sees, what he suddenly understands, is Byleth. 

“I think it’s him.”

* * *

Byleth opens his eyes.

The curtains are pulled aside. Sunshine and floorboards. There’s no heat, though there is a slight chill from the window. The nightstand by his bed isn’t Claude’s, but Manuela’s.

He could not say the same for the hands pressed to his chest. His back. They’re holding him up as he pants out a volley of breaths.

“Breathe, breathe,” he hears him murmur in his ear. “I can’t believe it. I _didn’t_ believe Manuela at first, but...you made it back to us, Teach.”

Claude’s scent is warm, earthy. The scruff of his beard reminds Byleth of his skin. His chest is whole. His eyes are sore from measuring the costs of death by minutes, maybe seconds.

Byleth feels a yearning. He doesn’t have a heart, he knows that now, but whatever sits in his chest drives him to reach for Claude and pull him in.

“I thought you were dead,” he hears Claude whispering. “Goddess, what did I do to deserve this?”

There’s a jerk in his thoughts: _Dead?_

“When you shoved me down to take the spear,” Claude is saying, and Byleth isn’t following because he _can’t_ be saying the words he’s actually saying, “I knew it was too late. It was my fault. I should’ve reacted quicker. And when you fell off the wyvern, down the sky, seeing your body plummet to the Earth like that, I...”

He lets Byleth go. His gaze is shimmering, wet, relieved. He reaches a hand into his coat.

“Even as fast as we could fly,” he says as he slowly withdraws an object, “I couldn’t reach you in time. But the least we could do was bring you back, and I didn’t—”

“Claude.”

“Well, I did the only thing I could do. It’s strange for me, but considering the options...”

“I prayed.” He’s searching Byleth over with glaring intensity. “I prayed to every Goddess, every God, every divine being I could think of that exists in this continent and in the next.” He extends his hand to give Byleth a closer look. His smile is reminiscent of talons and fangs. “Here. It’s actually a charm I received as a child. Have I mentioned Nadir to you before?”

Byleth doesn’t know how to answer.

“I don’t know if I believe in faith,” Claude continues, “but now, I’m finding more of a reason to. And if there truly is an afterlife associated _—_ Heaven, I believed they call it _—_ I’m sure I’d see you up there, my friend. Flying with the angels.”

And Byleth ponders this too. There’s a specific text he recalls to mind. He’d pored over the pages, now seemingly wide of the mark. Perhaps Hell has nothing to do with flames or torture. Perhaps it’s more of a condition that permeates through flesh, time, and memory to draw blood, draining you of your being. The experience is not solely constricted to yourself, for you know your pain and weakness. Hell would not be so forgiving. Perhaps it’s extended to the people you love, and the people they love, and all the living and dying that lies in between.

“I think I was dreaming,” Byleth says.

“What did you dream about?”

Byleth looks to Claude before he continues. “I believe...that I would see you there too.”

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on twitter! :) <https://twitter.com/blahzor1>


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